The printer of the invention is a high-speed printer intended for use in high-volume office environments where printing speeds of up to 120 pages per minute are required. In order to achieve the necessary throughput, document transmission from a host device, such as a desktop computer, and document rasterization are decoupled, with the rasterization process occurring in the printer itself. Further, because of the high resolution of the printheads, pages must be printed at a constant speed to avoid creating discontinuities. To effect this, document rasterization is, in turn, decoupled from document printing. Once again, the rasterization occurs in the printer and a page is not printed until it is fully rasterized.